PURPOSES: This study was initiated to estimate expressway traffic congestion costs by using Vehicle Detection System (VDS) data. METHODS : The overall methodology for estimating expressway traffic congestion costs is based on the methodology used in a study conducted by a study team from the Korea Transport Institute (KOTI). However, this study uses VDS data, including conzone speeds and volumes, instead of the volume delay function for estimating travel times. RESULTS : The expressway traffic congestion costs estimated in this study are generally lower than those observed in KOTI's method. The expressway lines that ranked highest for traffic congestion costs are the Seoul Ring Expressway, Gyeongbu Expressway, and the Youngdong Expressway. Those lines account for 64.54% of the entire expressway traffic congestion costs. In addition, this study estimates the daily traffic congestion costs. The traffic congestion cost on Saturdays is the highest. CONCLUSIONS : This study can be thought of as a new trial to estimate expressway traffic congestion costs by using actual traffic data collected from an entire expressway system in order to overcome the limitations of associated studies. In the future, the methodology for estimating traffic congestion cost is expected to be improved by utilizing associated big-data gathered from other ITS facilities and car navigation systems.